The Worm Had No Chance

Busy times on the RoK these days. All sorts of things have been happening, including:

My first solo art exhibition! Actually, my first art exhibition. A bunch of my drawings were hung up in the gallery space of a coffee shop in Cheongju near Seoul (population 700,000 – a lot!) for the month of May. Looks like there’s a place in the world for my janky illustrations after all!

Being ill. There is no bloody end, it seems, to how many times Husband can contract Korean Hell Flu from his students. And when he does, it doesn’t matter how high my diet is in natural remedies like copious amounts of raw fruit, vegetables and garlic, it’s only a matter of time until I too end up with a soaring fever, throat of glass and a head full of mucus.

Emigrating. Ha! Surprise! Yes, after three years in Korea it’s time to Move On…if everything goes according to plan to New Zealand! Woohoo! We’ve got all our documents, we’ve been approved as Skilled Migrants, all we’re missing is a job. I know. And we’re millionaires; all that’s missing is a million bucks…! Anyway, more (much more) on that later.

So it’s been all go in the Cartoon Palace. Full days and full lives. And in amongst it all,

Cooler than going back to the UK. (missmoss.co.za)

Husband and I finally did something we’d been talking about for a long time. We confronted The Worm.

What’s the worm? Well, according to a Korean colleague of a friend (yes, straying into Urban Myth territory here), Koreans eat a lot of pork (that is true and most definitely not an urban myth), and apparently there is a weird parasite that lives inside pork and which, if it’s not cooked correctly, can end up infesting our guts. Brilliant. (I did Google this – but I know that what’s seen cannot be unseen and I have no self-control when it comes to looking at grotesquery.)

Horrific.

Of course, we were all like, Ever read that Irvine Welsh book Filth? Oh God, horrific! And our friend was all like, I went with my colleague and took it, so I’m safe. And we thought, Oooh, maybe we should do that too. And that was 2 years ago, and we promptly forgot all about it.

Until now when the prospect of pricey medicals for immigration made us fess up to the notion that heading to the pharmacy and Konglish-miming “parasitic gut worm pill jusayo” would be infinitely less costly and embarrassing than having a medical specialist from Seoul sort it out.

Husband was tasked with sourcing the goods, and we necked those horse pills like they were the source of all life. Since then, we’ve enjoyed being knowingly worm-free, and connected quite closely with our cats and how they must feel after a trip to the vet for their own worm pills.

For anyone in Korea who thinks they have worms, or anyone anywhere who has eaten raw

Whether our bodies actually were hosting worms became a moot point when we learned those pills are only a buck! Which means with 10 weeks to go, guess what’s on the menu for our last meal in Korea? And who said Romance is dead.